A ruling from the United Kingdom Supreme Court has settled two matters key to the nature of sport: "woman' and 'women' are terms and statuses that apply only to biological females whose rights include legal provisions and protections in single-sex (biological sex) spaces, including sport.

The ruling also makes clear that UK law also makes provision for the rights of transgender people to live their lives without facing discrimination, which does not extend to claiming rights over the rights of others.

After Judge Lord Hodge delivered his ruling - details explain in this BBC News article, with video of the judgement - action from transgender advocates and campaigners suggested there remained a great deal of doubt on 'how it would work' as organisations, official bodies, sports and private health clubs, face the first day of working out where they'd already been going wrong in the laws hat already existed but had been subject to constant challenge through lack of the clarity provided by the Supreme Court ruling yesterday.

On the issue of sport, the matter is now clear, and here is how and why we can say that:

This morning, journalist and BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Nick Robinson asked Baroness (Kishwer) Falkner of Margravine, the chair of the UK's Equalities and Human Rights Commission, whether sport, "perhaps the most contentious" of realms on the frontline of challenge for several years, was also the easiest of areas to clarify. Robinson notes that Lord Coe, president of World Athletics, welcomed the ruling and then wonders "is it simple now - transwomen cannot take part in women's sport; those born as men cannot take part in women's sport?" The Baroness replies:

"Yes, it is. The ruling is enormously consequential, and it does bring clarity. That is undoubtedly the case. It's a very readable judgement, and organisations should be taking care to read it and to understand that I does bring clarity, and helps them to decide what hey have o do. So, yes, sport; that is correct, that is a correct interpretation."

Robinson extends the thought to "changing rooms"... and suggests there may be doubt about whether there is clarity on whether a transwoman can be excluded from a changing room without a charge of discrimination. The Baroness makes clear:

"Single-sex services, like changing rooms, must be based on biological sex. If a male person is allowed to use a women-only service or facility, it isn't any longer single sex. Then it becomes a mixed-sex space. But I have to say there is no law that forces organisations and service providers to provide single-sex spaces and there is no law against them providing a third space, an additional space, such as unisex toilets, for example, or changing rooms."

Robinson turns to toilets, another of the most contentious issues for several years, an issue that is not only about a clash of rights but about mitigation of safety risks.

Transgender campaigner Jane Fae, who no longer identifies as a man, had earlier suggested that transwomen faced being shut out of society because where they could not use the women's toilet, neither would they be welcome in the men's toilet.

Baroness Falkner says:

"There isn' any law saying that you cannot use a neutral third space, and they [transgender campaigners] should be using their powers of advocacy to ask for hose third spaces. But I think the law is quite clear: if a service provider says 'we're offering a women's toilet', transpeople should not be using that singe-sex facility. The steer from the Supreme Court is quite clear in that regard."

That, says Robinson, is where the EHRC's pending guidance and clarification on the new ruling will make matters clear for any organisations or people for the avoidance of doubt.

Asked if the EHRC would help the likes of the For Women Scotland campaign group take on legal challenges against organisations and individuals who fail to comply with the law and the latest legal ruling that nails down that law, Baroness Falkner noted that the whole matter would be covered by statutory (mandatory, obligatory) law set to be in place "hopefully, by the summer", and that would be "interpreted by courts as the law of the land". The underlying thought was clear: some of the kinds of trans-campaign challenges women have had to take on would be somewhat futile because they would have little or no chance of success.

The UK Equalities Act covers nine protected characteristics, sex, gender re-assignment and sexual orientation three of them. The EHRC evaluates when the law is not being followed and a "case-by-case" judgement and decision would be made, said the Baroness, on whether it would be necessary "to have conversations, to use a bigger rod, to use enforcement, compliance tools, or whatever. We will be continuing to do that."

In the wave of women celebrating the ruling were sportswomen who have campaigned for fair and safe play in the face of obstruction by governing bodies interpreting the law in ways they no longer will be able to in the UK.

Sharron Davies, Olympic medallist behind the T-fuelled might of the GDR in 1980, is the author (with this journalist) of Unfair Play - The Battle for Women's Sport. A campaigner for safe and fair play for women in sport for the best part of a decade, she suggested that it was high time sportswomen had a union capable of taking on such issues in a sports realm where the majority of executive leaderships remain overwhelmingly male.

In swimming, World Aquatics ruled in 2022 that no athlete who developed as male past Tanner Stage 2 puberty is eligible to compete in the women's category.

When World Aquatics invited trans athletes to take part in an Open competition at the World Cup in Berlin in 2023, not a single expression of interest was received. While transmen were happy to remain in women's competition (they would stand no chance in men's racing), transwomen wanted to transfer their male advantage into female racing:

Is ‘Open’ Only Attractive If Males Get A Ticket To Female Races? Berlin World Cup Suggests So: Not A Single Open Entry

“World Aquatics can confirm that no entries have been received for the Open Category events.” - World Aquatics reveals that trans swimmers invited to take part in Open World Cup event show no interest, as biological males continue to insist that their place in female sport is ‘fair’

State Of Swimming +Craig Lord

Dr. Linda Blade, a former Canadian pentathlon champion and now a coach and also a campaigner for women in sport, agreed but noted that women were also among those who did not feel a need to keep males out of female sport:

Read their books:

• Unfair Play by Sharron Davies, with Craig Lord, and
• Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial Are Destroying Sport - by Linda Blade and journalist Barbara Kay

On Blade's blade in Canada, this experts' response to events and interpretation of trans rights in sport was damning, and well worth a read, if you were unaware of it:

When Ideology Trumps Science: A response to the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport’s Review on Transwomen Athletes in the Female Category

A group of scientists and humanities scholars has written an expert commentary about the recently published ‘Scientific Review’ by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport about transwomen’s participation in female sport. The CCES Review, claim the authors, doesn’t deserve its name; it is wholly unscientific, another attempt to replace materially based eligibility criteria in sport with ‘social identity’ as a passport to inclusion, and they highlight its shortcomings in methodology, and its sometimes incoherent, sometimes misleading argumentation.

idrottsforum.orgThe Editor

NB - commentary: The use of the term 'trumps' requires a footnote for the avoidance of doubt: the other Trump, current president of the Disunited States of America, has honed in on the unfairness of males in females sport - and in politics, the issue cost Democrats critical votes and there remains far too much denial of the damage done to women's sport when a clash of rights is settled by embracing discrimination against women.

The consequences of the latest U.S. election are unfolding - and some of them are hugely damaging to women's rights. Voters in any free nation have a right, of course, to base their vote on single issues and while its hard to say just how much sway the matter of males in female sports had in the latest dangerous dance with tribalism in the U.S., there can be no question that it was significant.

I invite those harnessing their chariots to MAGA on the basis of a single, sports-related, issue to throw I forward: the United States is scheduled to host the next Olympics, in Los Angeles come 2028. That event is hurtling towards mass boycott as things stand, and boycotts hurt athletes. So, time to talk to your representatives and persuade them to speak up on two things that the world does not need:

• unfair and unsafe sport that discriminates against female athletes (single-sex protections are in everyone's best interests, including those of the many transpeople who get hot and just want to lead their lives in peace the way they wish to - which is not, by the way, what MAGA wants, in realms far beyond sport)
• Putin in the stands at LA2028, Russians back in the fold while Ukraine iOS sold off in parcels as part of a 'deal' between dictators and their oligarch backers, while large swathes of the world feel unable and unwilling to attend, echoes of Berlin 1936 heavy in the air.